Icelandic Activist To Speak At Dunedin School Of Art

Iceland democracy
activist and artist Hordur Torfason will be speaking at
Otago Polytechnic’s Dunedin School of Art on Wednesday the
27th of March, as part of a series of nationwide talks on
modern democracy.

Well-practiced at stirring things
up, Hordur stood up for gay rights in Iceland in the
mid-seventies and found himself on the activist stage again
when he inspired Icelandic people to take action after the
country’s economic crash in 2008.

Peacefully,
Hordur and the Icelandic people managed to achieve the
resignation of the entire government. The Icelandic banks
were nationalised at the start of this year, and two former
senior bankers imprisoned. The Icelandic constitution was
re-written by the people, some providing input via Facebook
and Twitter.

The Icelandic economy has improved and
two years later is performing better than the European
Union. The International Monetary Fund and heavyweight
economists agree that Iceland did the right thing. Nobel
prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz notes, “What Iceland
did was right. It would have been wrong to burden future
generations with the mistakes of the financial
system.”

Hordur, who currently lectures on meta
modern democracy in Europe, has received numerous awards for
his enduring efforts as a human rights activist, including
The Tupilak, from the Swedish Gay Organisation for
outstanding contribution in the gay rights field in 1995 and
2009, and an award from the Icelandic Social Democratic
Party for his courage, bravery and honesty in human right
struggles in 2003.

“This is a tremendous honour
and major coup for Otago Polytechnic and the Dunedin School
of Art,” says Head of the Dunedin School of Art, Leoni
Schmidt, who will be hosting the afternoon session.

“Mr. Hordur is a human rights pioneer and has proven
that the people can indeed inspire and make change. I think
we will all learn something from him.”

Hordur’s
husband, architect Massimo Santanicchia, will also be
speaking at the event with a focus on the importance to
support a more responsive, integrated and holistic urbanism
at a regional and governance level.

According to
Santanicchia, small cities (less than 500,000 inhabitants)
host fifty-two per cent of the world urban population, yet
they are profoundly neglected in the urban studies field.
This lecture focuses on the small city of Reykjavik (118,326
inhabitants), and investigates how the planning system is
trying to build a new urban strategy away from the world
city model which was adopted until the banking collapse of
2008.

The event is open to the public and will be
held at the Dunedin School of Art at Otago
Polytechnic (19 Riego Street, near the corner of Anzac and
Albany) on Wednesday the 27th of March from 12.00pm-3:00pm
in Room P152. Koha contributions will be welcome.

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